Live Long & Younger With Yoga

The benefits of yoga are well known. It can help keep you flexible, strong, and improve your mental health. All these can be passed on to children as well. There are many ways yoga can enhance your children’s lives and is a great way to teach them about caring for their body. Here are some tips on how to start introducing your children to yoga to bring the health, happiness, and grounding.

Tip One: Keep It Simple

Some yoga poses are going be too difficult or too involved to keep a child interested. Sticking to basic poses helps the stay focused, and also teaches them the foundations of yoga. As they mature and grow, both as people and in their own practices, they can start exploring. At the beginning, only the basic poses though, such as Downward Dog, Warrior, and other foundation poses are a great place to start your yoga practice, and the that worked for you. Those will likely work well for your children too.

Tip Two: Be Flexible

You know that yoga is largely about flexibility. This does not just refer to your muscles either. When you are trying to get your child to engage yoga, they may have different plans. You and your child will both enjoy it more if you go with the flow. This lets them explore their own practice while having your guidance and help.

Tip Three: Be Fun

Activities that children like to do again and again have to be fun. If you want them to enjoy the time spent practicing yoga, finding ways to make it a game can keep them wanting to come back. A great way to add some fun is to introduce some poses based on animals. Cat and Cow poses are simple poses that can be made even more fun by introducing animal noises. While this can get a little loud, especially if you have more than one child, it is all for good fun. Let them experience yoga with a sense of joy and happiness. It will help them associate good health with happy times.

Tip Four: Remember That They Are Children

It is important for you to manage your expectations. They probably are not going to stay interested during a full hour-long practice, and they may decide that your poses are not what they want to do. Trying to force young children into yoga is a sure fire way to chase them away.

To get your children into their own yoga practice, you need to let them lead. You will want to show them the basics, and let them move on from there in their own way. You want them to find their own practice, not be pushed into your idea of yoga. Make it fun for them, so they associate activity with good times and remember children will likely find their own way. It should not be forced, and watching them grow is ever so satisfying as a parent.

Eka Pada Koundinyasa, also known as flying splits, is an advance arm balance meaning One-Footed Pose dedicated to the sage Kaundinya. This pose can be physically demanding and frustrating if you’re someone who’s just starting with your journey. But like everything great, the beginnings are always the hardest. However, with patience and effort, nothing is impossible.

This pose improves balance, builds strong shoulders, wrists and arms. It also strengthens the internal organs, boosts metabolism and increases mobility of the spine. Flying splits is also a good posture to create a stronger core and legs. This posture promotes self-awareness and develops a clearer mind to balance the energies of life and composure while facing struggles.

Approaching the posture can be frustrating and very challenging. The science behind flying splits is slowly shifting your weight forward to the foundations of the shoulders and arms rather than just trying to lift your back foot up. The weight at the front of the body will create the leverage to allow your back foot to lift without actually lifting it up. Do not lower the upper body too much to avoid pushing the shoulders into extensions.

Flying Splits. Eka Pada Koundinyasana is amazing but it’s not an easy posture. However, with regular practice, your body will naturally be familiarized with the technique needed to remain at balance, holding the pose for few breaths, strengthening the overall body and the mind.

How: Start in Downward-Facing Dog. Plant your hands shoulder width apart and your feet hip width apart on the ground. Push through the hips and imagine that it is tied to a string pulling your body up in an inverted V. Then transition to Three-Legged Dog, lifting and extending your left leg up. Inhale and bend your left knee and slowly bring it to your left triceps. Exhale gently as you lower your body in chaturanga, shifting your weight forward, allowing space at the back to lift your right leg. Extend both legs and hold the pose for three breaths. Stabilize your balance by spreading your fingers and planting them on the ground. Do the same technique on the other side.

Chaturanga, crow pose, compass pose and eight angle pose would be great preparatory poses before digging into Eka Pada Koundinyasana. Don’t attempt the pose if you have any injuries on wrists and shoulders or any other medical conditions unless approved by your physician.

Do not rush flying your splits. It will take practice and patience as you learn and have fun while building a strong foundation. Learning to fully approach will be even harder if you have tight hamstrings. Don’t feel down when it seems you can’t hold the pose. Take a rest. Pause for a moment to regain composure and try again with integrity and stability.

Be in the moment and listen to your body. Never force it to do anything that goes against its current capabilities. Slowly progress and be aware of what’s happening within and it will surely manifest itself physically in the practice. Keep learning and one day you’ll fly your Eka Pada Koundinyasana!